What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Goran]

Checked mating nucs: all three - hatched in June - were DLQs.

Lousy mating weather and poor drones I assume.

Oh well, try again.

In June I had one colony which lost it's queen. I left emergency cells to they provide temporary queen while I manage to "produce" better one. Later when I was checking the status, I found one dlq below queen excluder, and one dlq above queen excluder ( I have entrance on qe). After that I made splits with queen cells, it was strong colony so easily I made two colonies of it. Now developing nicely..

 

[Margaret Elisabeth]

Nix. yesterday made up supers and frames. Placed on new hive.

 

[madasafish]

Well try 2 and a half. Made frame as per FatBeeman on Youtube..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64cKn4rLNM
and added to Q- colony.

Merged 2 Q- nucs and gave them a frame of eggs as well (Miller method)

. Added more nursery bees to Kieler mini nuc.

Got stung on buttocks (as per Tom Hanks) - bee up trouser legs.

Very hot - lost a lot of sweat..

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Yesterday I prepared my Honey for the Royal Welsh honey show - then had to pop it down to my cousin's wife who's taking it up to Builth with hers on Sunday. As I was there we went through three of her hives with her (one swarmed last week, so a check for QC's and selection of best one), the other Q- she was squished the other week as the colony is vicious - test frame put in from the other, very docile colony - closed QC's present - selected the best and left them to it.

 

[user 6228]

Yesterday, the beekeeper got the 3rd colony ready for dispatch to its new owner. I've got to build a new floor and or a new hive cover so we can start reclaiming supers from being 1/2 brood boxes, but its too hot today.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

its too hot today.

Better insulation needed? How does insulation and (presumably) a lack of broodless period interplay with varroa?

 

[user 6228]

Better insulation needed? How does insulation and (presumably) a lack of broodless period interplay with varroa?

I'm too hot not the bees.
I wouldn't presume anything about bees. Broodlessness may have other factors day length, pollen availability. Higher colony temperature and humidity has been shown to reduce varoa viability. It has been shown that bees bite off varroa and stun/kill them with mandible venom. Having more hours available for this activity I.e. not in cluster will assist. Remember I am advocating a restoration of their tree nest level of insulation rather than conditions unknown to Apis mellifera

 

[dpearce4]

Cant do anything. Done my back in.

 

[madasafish]

Cant do anything. Done my back in.

My sympathies.

 

[MJBee]

Nowt - too hot at 29C in the shade!!

Made a solar wax extractor in the "cool" of the workshop instead.

 

[MonseigneurBienvenu]

At some ungodly hour we moved a nuc to a new location. Upon my return, I discovered that the five or so stragglers had no intention of going into a small, pink replacement box! (I wonder why ) A tiniest smear of lemongrass oil on a tiny piece of wax shoved into it later, they dutifully marched in. In fact, you could see them liven up within a second of smelling the stuff, within two they started scurrying. Marvellous!

 

[user 6228]

Cant do anything. Done my back in.

Not. Again! You need my patent super crane

 

[Goran]

"I have a cunning plan" these days..

 

[beebopalula]

Tested a different type of paint on some new poly hives. It is water-based and suitable for plastics. Bonded well with the poly with better coverage than masonry paint and quicker to apply.
Also glossed the syrup well in six Ashforth feeders - gloss adheres better than any other paint.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Checked a few of the Brynmair nucs, so much nectar coming in that i'm afraid they'll run out of space - the nuc with a queen introduced on 26/06 is now on five frames of BIAS filled in the last fortnight so I've moved her into a full hive. One nuc with QC looks a bit iffy - loads of bees but wall to wall stores, they haven't kept any laying space so I'm wondering if the queen got lost somewhere - given them another frame to be going on with, I'll check again in a few days, 'tother QC nuc is filling slower - classic brood arch, polished cells but light a bit iffy for me to see any eggs, again not muck space so I've had to hive them.
Another nuc with a small swarm I picked up on the weekend seems unsettled - not much comb drawing going on and very jittery on the drawn frames already in the nuc although plenty of foraging bees, so I'll give them a week to see what develops.

 

[kighill]

I made a skep

I make the occasional straw skep but this is the first chance I have had to spend a full day at making one.

I managed to complete a full skep in the day.

Sorry I am clueless when it comes to adding pictures so no photograph.

 

[kighill]

I made a Straw Skep

I make the occasional straw skep but this is the first chance I have had to spend a full day at making one.

I managed to complete a full skep in the day.

Sorry I am clueless when it comes to adding pictures so no photograph.

 

[Mellifera397]

I make the occasional straw skep but this is the first chance I have had to spend a full day at making one.

I managed to complete a full skep in the day.

Sorry I am clueless when it comes to adding pictures so no photograph.

I started one two days ago it took me four hours to get as far as I did. You can see the photos on my blog.

The address is listed on my profile, just click on my username.

M

 

[VEG]

Added another load of supers to hives today most of the ones on them are near to being capped, hope my uncapping machine comes soon. My father in law is now officially my frame/super maker yee haaa.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Made up some more frames, supers and brood boxes as the buggers are shoveling it in - going out later on to sort out two bait hives, one at Garn cottage and one on the field - that's three hits so far, not bad going!